Hebron Pact A `Baby Step' To Real Peace

January 16, 1997|By E.A. TORRIERO Staff Writer

To U.S. mediators who lit cigars to celebrate, it was a significant step toward peace. But in the Middle East, few found the moment quite so satisfying.

Many Israelis and Palestinians are bitterly opposed to the Hebron deal forged on Wednesday after months of acrimony. Even those who favor the accord see it as but a small step on an excruciatingly long road toward lasting peace.

"It's good headway; it changes the atmosphere between Israelis and Palestinians, which has hardly been good, but I think it's a baby step," said Steve Yetiv, a U.S. expert on the Middle East peace process.

"There are harder issues to come, and it's going to get pretty nasty again," Yetiv predicted.

By early today, both the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli Cabinet had ratified the deal. It calls for Israel to withdraw its troops from 80 percent of Hebron and allow the West Bank city to be ruled by Palestinians.

Israeli troops are to remain to protect a core of about 500 Jewish settlers and the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a site honoring the biblical Abraham and considered sacred by both sides.

But maybe more importantly, the pact also presents a road map for the future, with Israel agreeing to pull back from Arab-dominated rural parts of the West Bank by August 1998.

"It sets in motion a dynamic toward normalization," said Rivka Yadlin, a professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem who is teaching about the peace process this winter at Georgetown University in Washington. "History has shown that if things start moving in the right direction, they build a momentum towards non-aggression."

Still, thorny issues remain:

-- Right-wing Israelis assailed the agreement on Wednesday during 11 hours of loud arguments in the Knesset. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is being accused of betrayal by former supporters and nearly half of his Cabinet. He had been elected with the help of opponents of the Hebron deal who want Israel to annex the West Bank. Now he must heal rifts in his Likud party - rifts that reflect a growing division among Israelis over the nation's policy toward the Palestinians.

-- Under the watchful eyes of U.S. mediators, Israel is scheduled to redeploy more troops from rural West Bank areas during the next 19 months. Ultimately, Palestinians want to establish an independent state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip - a move Netanyahu opposes. Meanwhile, Israel is building more settlements on the West Bank - a move the Clinton administration and Palestinian leaders see as a major obstacle to peace.

-- Palestinians have yet to keep a major part of a promise made in peace agreements in Oslo, Norway, in 1994: the rewriting of the Palestinian Covenant to remove fiery words that call for the destruction of Israel. Without a change in the charter, Israelis vow there will never be a permanent peace agreement.

-- Trade and commerce arrangements still need to be worked out, not only between the West Bank and Israel but also between Israel and several Arab nations in the region.

-- Ultimately, Palestinians and Israelis must decide the future of Jerusalem - the most complicated and potentially divisive issue in Arab-Israeli relations. Israel has vowed never to cede control of the Holy City to Palestinians. Palestinians want to make East Jerusalem the capital of their new state.

Under previous peace agreements, such issues are supposed to be settled by May 1999.

"It's big stuff, big questions to think about," said Kenneth Stein, a director of the Middle East Research Program at Emory University in Atlanta. "An enormous mistrust of the past has to be overcome by both sides. A major ideological shift is taking place in the Middle East, and that cannot happen without the bitter words and acrimony, as we have seen in the past."

Much of how the peace process unfolds seems to be dependent on the role of the Clinton administration. The United States has pledged to guarantee everything from the construction of new sewers on Hebron's streets to the timetable of Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank.

U.S. officials said on Wednesday that they intended to ensure that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat implement security measures on the West Bank and keep the radical Hamas faction in check. In return, the United States says it will press Netanyahu to stick to the withdrawal timetable.

"Now that the parties have taken this difficult step, they must not step back in fatigue," Secretary of State Warren Christopher said in Washington. "They must now use this new momentum to move ahead to build the peace that is in the common interest of Israelis and Palestinians alike."

But on Wednesday, U.S. influence was seen by many in Israel as meddling. While the Palestinian Authority approved the Hebron deal in short order, the Israeli parliament became embroiled in a controversy over the role the United States would play in future deals.